To think, I predicted a 4-1 here.
Just as I was laughing when I wrote the preview, so I’m laughing now.
We just don’t do shoe-ins, simple.

But this time, I’m not laughing in a masochistic way, because we took the points.

When you consider Bolton have conceded way more than two goals a game over their last ten, you’d have thought we would have been good enough for more than one.
That one was a penalty too, which puts a bit of a dampener on things.

But it doesn’t matter, because we took the points, which is ALL that matters.

It wasn’t a brilliant game to watch, but there were the odd highlights.
Snodgrass was outstanding, I thought. He was involved in pretty much everything, it seemed.
His work rate, creativity, crossing and set-pieces deserved a goal, in my opinion.
He had a very decent snap shot attempt, late on, which looked a cert and how their goalie got down to save, I really don’t know.

Kodjia scored from a penalty, after he was pulled down (yet again) but was guilty of some real greed just a minute before, when we flummoxed their defence. It was easier to pass to Adomah, who would have had an empty net to kick into, yet Kodjia decided to go it alone and shot wide, albeit the goalie got a touch.
It annoyed me, but that’s what Kodjia does, isn’t it?

Taylor saw a red card, for what looked like a tackle midway between the knee and ankle.
It looked horrendous at first glance, but Steve Bruce seems to have had the hump and walked up to the ref at the end, to complain.
I’d expect an appeal, but doubt we’ll win it, which leaves us with a position played by a player who doesn’t belong there. That isn’t ideal, to say the least and might prove a problem.

And what about Glen Whelan?
This is a player who normally plays in a very small area, who is being asked to move around a lot more.
I don’t think it suits him and it shows. He looks really poor at the moment.
That said, I believe it was him who cleared one of Bolton’s rare chances off the line, so you win in parts and lose in others.
I’ll stick with my “I don’t care, as long as we’re winning” stance.

All in all, it wasn’t pretty, although I didn’t think it was a really poor game to watch.
But we got the points and it’s onwards and upwards.

That’s 4 wins on the bounce, isn’t it?
Which sees us up there in the current form table.

We have some tougher games coming up, but I don’t believe we should be scared of anyone.

You want some positivity?
I say bring them all on. We’ll beat the lot.
We have to, if we expect to go up.
And as it currently stands, I believe we’re capable of it, as much as it might not have looked like it yesterday.

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Quite by chance I met an agent today, who told me Villa have asked his agency to find an out-of-contract left back who can also play centre-back. Not asking for much are they – after more than a decade of wing-backs? Only manager I can think of who breeds that dual role player is Tony Pulis.